What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[Rulakir]

the funeral quest alone made me tear up because I was happy to have been able to share something new with them and see how excited they were to use it in the future, only to remember that these people would be killed soon, there was no future.

This is why I don't understand Pandemonium. We're saving them from what exactly only for them to still perish in the Final Days (or by our hand in the future)?

To then completely 180 on that and try to imply that the Ancients were doomed from the start and there was no way they ever could have survived due to this contrived unwillingness to change, well it left a very bad taste in my mouth. "Humanity wins because humanity" is a very tired message and given the scope of the world we have here, it felt pretty self-serving. Some of that nuance I loved so much was sadly diminished.

It doesn't make any sense. Ishikawa wanted to "humanize" the Ascians. Rather than Echo flashbacks, we're sent to mingle among the Ancients of Elpis. The whole experience is orchestrated to connect us to them and then we're supposed to believe the strawmen group in Venat's cutscene were representative of their entire civilization as a whole?

Watching the end of dungeon cutscene with Hermes, he says: "If he can learn to value all life and retain his will to live, even should his end be justified, he will surely find a way to avert his demise." First, the Ancients did that, they averted their demise. Second, the sundered don't value all life, not even close. The people who arguably passed the test were still failed by Venat. The people who didn't thematically pass the test are lauded as the winners.

This game has an unpleasant trend of blaming the victims of awful circumstances whilst praising those who have every advantage as 'heroes' when they barely endure any similar or meaningful struggles in their own lives by comparison.

What would we do without rich teenagers telling us how we should be living our lives though? :P

It's interesting, in SHB Emet even states their palette of emotions may be broader than that of the sundered:

I still love his line in ENG: "Well, rest assured that if your heart can be broken, then so can mine!"

[Brinne]

This is a bit more cringeposting than even is typical for me, so apologies beforehand:

Something I've said a few times when discussing this in my own spaces is "I don't hate Endwalker, but I absolutely hate what Endwalker brings out in people." I think I've mentioned before that the way EW leans into encouraging and leaving room for people to Other the Ancients really got under my skin, when I would say the main thing I loved and appreciated Shadowbringers for was that it seemed to actually stand in open, fierce defiance of that temptation, shouting from the rooftops to Humanize and Empathize instead.

Shadowbringers--"Jet-Black Villains," the point ultimately of which was an interrogation of the very concept of "villain"--resonated with me as a shockingly wonderful balance between acknowledging the inherent harshness and unfairness within the world, and also encouraging compassion and empathy even so. The "sides" we end up on, who may wind up competing for resources, existential or otherwise, are largely arbitrary. The entire premise of asking "who is more worthy to live" is flawed and self-serving from the onset, and often only gets asked by the "side" who feels self-assurance that they'll come out on the winning end of that question. That's why I loved the Scions having no answer to Emet-Selch, and being forced to concede the point to him, when he frames the matter in that way - because for the once, the "humans" as we know them come out losing. And then they assert they have the right to live anyway. Because life, once it exists, doesn't have to justify itself.

I never faulted Emet-Selch for his goals or his love or his desire to save those he saw as depending on him (and by all evidence we're seen, he was right - the souls trapped in Zodiark were in "anguish", lamenting about "how long" it had been, wishing for their world and their souls to be made whole again...), but where I do think where he went wrong - where he faltered in terms of the "moral superiority" position compared to the WoL - was him resorting to fairly typical mental gymnastics to attempt to justify his violence committed against the Shards. It was cowardly to desperately try to tell himself "you're not really alive," and other such obvious lies, because he was too soft-hearted to deal with the full impact of what he was doing to save people who did deserve to be saved. He didn't have the emotional fortitude to fully gaze into the genuine humanity of those he "had" to condemn, and so fell back onto the temptation of Othering. He succumbed to the framework of "hero and villain."

The true moment of heroism, the actual moral triumph, in Shadowbringers, for the WoL, was overcoming that temptation by nodding in respect to Emet's dying request - and the acknowledgment in the journal that, by killing him and saving the Shards while simultaneously snuffing out the hopes of the Ancients, "you have done a great and terrible thing." Yes, the WoL had to do what they had to do. But they could still recognize it as a tragic thing. And they could still show kindness to the person to the other side in the capacity they were able.

So it's always been frustrating for me to see others completely miss or reject that idea, and actively look for ways we didn't actually have to feel bad about putting the nail in the Ancients' coffin. Searching for ways the Amaurotine society was obviously creepy and alien, even though it was clearly framed - just listen to the music! - to be a gentle, kind place, filled with all manner of human beings. Some more gentle, some stricter, some more passionate, some more relaxed. Some utterly terrified at the news of the Final Days, and some having firm faith in the Convocation to find a solution. Claiming that, well, we take priority because we're the present and the Ancients are in the past - when the entire premise of Shadowbringers depends on a person rejecting their present/our future, and seeking to change it and restore things to how they were because of a calamity. Arguing that, and actively searching for evidence that, well, they MUST have done this to themselves somehow, therefore we have no culpability in our choices regarding their fate.

There's also an inherent sense of "there is no winning for the Ancients," rhetorically, built within a lot of these arguments. You also see people speaking for the Ancients and saying that they wouldn't want all his death and misery inflicted to save them - how would you know? - but the feeling is that, well, obviously, if they're "good" they wouldn't want to save themselves, and if they do, then they're not "good," so there's no need to feel a desire to save them anyway. Because the goal, fundamentally, is justifying what has happened and our own actions, and trying to make that weight lighter on ourselves - as Emet-Selch was doing through his nonsense. If they're different from us, and something bad happened, well, there must have been a reason for it, right? Right?

It's a little harrowing for me sometimes - the reminders of how easy it is to get swept up in Othering propaganda, to fall to victim blaming and just universe fallacies, to sadly nod and agree there was "no other way" but to massacre an entire population if it's to our own benefit and just presented in the correct way (sweeping, beautiful music and leaning on ~symbolism~ instead of the raw reality of what is happening helps, it seems!) and by a charismatic, likable person. Sometimes bad things happen for no reason to good people, and sometimes a "good" result for some comes of it, and there's no rationalizing it. Even so, I think Shadowbringers argues, you can still choose kindness, trying to understand others' perspectives, and love. (You can still choose Zenos. <_<) But you can only do that with the understanding that the just world fallacy is, in fact, a terrible, terrible fallacy.

[Lauront]

It's partly what irritates me when people try to argue "oh look, Venat stuck to her ideals all along, but look at those Ascians, how they changed!"

Considering she stuck them in that position, knowing what would unfold, and then vilified them, while she played the role of supreme deity... Or do the writers want to present us with an alternative method to realise their aims... like time travel to a point in time where it could've all been averted? Oh wait... about that... sorry, no can do!

[TaleraRistain]

Agreed that many of the people of Elpis felt more human to me than the people of Eorzea.

I had the exact opposite impression. What stuck out to me was their obsession with purpose. And how if that purpose was fulfilled, they felt they had nothing more to give and would move on to the aetherial sea. Venat hints at this because others were surprised when she stepped down that she didn't go on to death. But even she was obsessed with purpose. She wasn't sticking around because she had found a new one. She was on the same purpose she had been on.

Contrast this with Eorzeans, someone like Severian. Severian is the alchemist guildmaster and in the ARR storyline he's obsessed with the purpose of bringing his dead love back to life so he can tell her his feelings. You help him do this. Does he go off and die then? No, he remains the alchemist guildmaster and finds something else to devote his time to. And Eozeans do that all the time. Some might work at a purpose their entire lives but many others fulfill a purpose and a find a new one. That felt very human to me. The Ancients not seeking out a new purpose and the implication that was normal in their society and that they looked askance at those who didn't do that was what felt inhuman to me.

[Theodric]

So it's always been frustrating for me to see others completely miss or reject that idea, and actively look for ways we didn't actually have to feel bad about putting the nail in the Ancients' coffin. Searching for ways the Amaurotine society was obviously creepy and alien, even though it was clearly framed - just listen to the music! - to be a gentle, kind place, filled with all manner of human beings. Some more gentle, some stricter, some more passionate, some more relaxed. Some utterly terrified at the news of the Final Days, and some having firm faith in the Convocation to find a solution. Claiming that, well, we take priority because we're the present and the Ancients are in the past - when the entire premise of Shadowbringers depends on a person rejecting their present/our future, and seeking to change it and restore things to how they were because of a calamity. Arguing that, and actively searching for evidence that, well, they MUST have done this to themselves somehow, therefore we have no culpability in our choices regarding their fate.

That's an excellent point and I honestly think it's a problem that in itself is stripping a lot of the fantasy out of the fantasy genre. There's an unfortunate trend of late where the only acceptable approach for some is for even non-human races to simply be little more than a bland copy and paste of real world modern day humans complete with the same speech patterns, behaviour and moral compass. With the latter element being exceedingly hypocritical in how it is applied. Namely through the matter of 'rules for thee but not for me!'

It reminds me of the scenes in the Azim Steppe where Y'shtola inexplicably decides to insult the proud traditions of the Xaela who I will happily consider to be inherently more interesting than a generic pseudo-sassy cat girl who can't even maintain a consistent stance on whether or not tribal societies should be protected or attacked.

[Rulakir]

Something I've said a few times when discussing this in my own spaces is "I don't hate Endwalker, but I absolutely hate what Endwalker brings out in people." I think I've mentioned before that the way EW leans into encouraging and leaving room for people to Other the Ancients really got under my skin, when I would say the main thing I loved and appreciated Shadowbringers for was that it seemed to actually stand in open, fierce defiance of that temptation, shouting from the rooftops to Humanize and Empathize instead.

Every time I read one of your write-ups I'm even more disappointed in EW. :P I really want to know what happened between ShB and EW. I struggle with believing that EW is the direction Ishikawa wanted to go.

What stuck out to me was their obsession with purpose. And how if that purpose was fulfilled, they felt they had nothing more to give and would move on to the aetherial sea.

I know some people retain a fervency for life until the end of their days and I am not one of them. I've dealt with feeling like I have nothing to offer and that there is no purpose to my existence. I'm not even that old comparatively and certainly not in comparison to the lifespans of the Ancients. Needless to say, the Ancient mentality didn't phase me. I thought it was beautiful they could make that decision for themselves and it was celebrated rather than condemned. I've certainly heard more than my fair share of "you're wrong for feeling that way", it was nice to see it depicted as not being some sort of sin in another culture.

[Lauront]

The whole notion that the ancients and other long-lived, very different races of beings just didn't exhibit the 'right' response to some contrived problem sits rather poorly with me. Why should such beings have to fall in line exactly with human-derived perspectives on things in order to produce the 'right' answer, when they stem from entirely different biologies etc.? We can accept this doesn't have to be the case with the dragons... why would it need to be for the ancients?

[Caurcas]

That's an excellent point and I honestly think it's a problem that in itself is stripping a lot of the fantasy out of the fantasy genre. There's an unfortunate trend of late where the only acceptable approach for some is for even non-human races to simply be little more than a bland copy and paste of real world modern day humans complete with the same speech patterns, behaviour and moral compass. With the latter element being exceedingly hypocritical in how it is applied. Namely through the matter of 'rules for thee but not for me!'

It reminds me of the scenes in the Azim Steppe where Y'shtola inexplicably decides to insult the proud traditions of the Xaela who I will happily consider to be inherently more interesting than a generic pseudo-sassy cat girl who can't even maintain a consistent stance on whether or not tribal societies should be protected or attacked.

What fantasy are you reading? Genuinely curious. I rarely encounter the writing you speak of outside of YA dreck, and horrors that wear the flesh of an existing IP.

[KageTokage]

I don't think it's really "cringeposting" to exhaustively point out what made Shadowbringers great compared to Endwalker.

The thing that irks me most about the Elpis bit is that the whole thing being a causal loop/foregone conclusion feels like it's actively trying to discourage people from thinking about alternative possibilities and how Venat's reasoning seems extremely flawed if you examine it past a surface level and don't get swept up in emotion. Tellingly, that's precisely what many people use as a defense to her actions.

If they really wanted her to be more readily viewed as a hero at the end of the day, they honestly just needed to add additional context to what the Ancients were planning to paint it as something genuinely abhorrent and a definitive start of them heading down a dark path. If they had been intending to sacrifice sentient beings like the beastmen to meet their ends and/or it was implied they would've kept sacrificing more and more in a bid to undo literally all of the damage caused by the Final Days then it would've felt more justified.

They also could've absolved her of inaction prior to the Final Days by making it clear that she did try to warn the Convocation and other influential figures about the impending apocalypse, but for one reason or another was not able to convince them to take the drastic measures needed to safeguard the world.

[Lauront]

The easiest route they had available to them without damning the ancients in the process (in the eyes of the audience, anyhow) would be to have it all be the result of a tragic misunderstanding/misdirection, rather than fixating on justifying what she did, and possibly having her be party to the memory wipe as well. I thought they were going to take it in that direction given how they depicted Elidibus, as well as Ryne's primal transformation, i.e. that the effect of taking on the position of heart would be to entrench each of the two into their ideals, even if the whole conflict was born of a misunderstanding or say, misdirection - and with the references to the Telophoroi etc., they had an excellent way to position such a third party mischief-maker. The fixation on trying to justify her position is what led to all this awkwardness and ultimately backfires, IMO, and parts ways with SHB's more perspective-driven approach to that.

This is why I don't understand Pandemonium. We're saving them from what exactly only for them to still perish in the Final Days (or by our hand in the future)?

Forgot to remark on this... I think it's less about saving them and more about preserving the present: